Meeting the North American Koha Community

This past North American Koha Users Group (NAKUG) meeting was my first Koha conference, and I am blown away! It’s a privilege to have met so many dedicated members of the Koha community. The conference was a chance to put names to faces, make new friends, and witness library professionals share what they know openly and willingly with one another. How many people can say that they are personally involved in and have contributed ideas towards the development of new features in their library’s software, and get to be involved in testing and implementation? Or band together with an international group of people to meet their library’s goals? Now THAT is the beauty of open source software. It’s impossible to not feel so much enthusiasm for Koha!

We had an opportunity to talk about workflows, quick tips, functionality, testing, and growing the Koha community. Members gave presentations on using the reports module and SQL basics, using sandboxes, editing MARC records, new cataloging features, and more. We’ve got community members with extensive knowledge, and I feel no shame in saying that my journal is full of conference notes! It was great to hear how libraries are using Koha. It certainly has a bright future!